The Big Story

The practice of solitary confinement in Canada had been found to violate inmates' human rights. The government had been given a year to fix it, and last December, the year was almost up. Since then, a lot has changed in the world. But it seems not a lot has changed in our prison system. And if anything had really changed, we likely wouldn’t know, because the government won’t tell us. It won't even...

It sucks to think about cold weather and flu season when BBQs and beaches are still on the menu, but that’s the life of epidemiologists during a global pandemic. School starts next week. Fall is almost here. We’ve learned a lot about Covid-19 since February but have we used that knowledge to prepare for an inevitable second wave? And when that wave does come, how bad will it be? GUEST: Dr. David F...

We're bringing you a special episode of our sister show, Black Tea. In this one, Mel and Dalton talk to Celina Caesar-Chavannes, a former Member of Parliament, about how a lack of political will directly harm Black communities. We hope you'll listen. We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us: Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca  Or...

A special episode of the Big Story looks at what has happened in sports over the past 48 hours and asks a question: If it isn't business as usual, and talking won't get things done, what will? GUEST: None. We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for future episodes. You can find us: Through email at hello@thebigstorypodcast.ca  Or @thebigstory.bsky.social on Bluesky

You’ve probably lived most of your life with rising income inequality. The rich steadily get richer while the rest of us just try to keep up. It’s difficult sometimes to keep in mind that it wasn’t always this way; that this is a choice we made—maybe not us, but the people we put in power. What Covid-19 has done to steadily rising inequality is, basically, the equivalent of throwing gas on a fire....

He loves Top Gun, but he admits he's not Maverick. He courted the social conservative vote, then turned around and made a play for moderates. He wants a more inclusive Conservative Party of Canada, but he won't budge on the carbon tax. How did Erin O'Toole pull off the upset victory? What's his vision for the party he now leads? Where did he come from and is he just boring enough to put a real sca...

It's perhaps the worst news you can imagine getting—and the only way to make it worse is to get it via videoconference in the midst of a pandemic. COVID-19 has forced sudden changes to the medical system, and created a flood of new health questions for anyone at risk. But do we have the answers? How do we give patients the care they need for life-threatening illnesses, and the support they need to...

The past six months have featured a lot of speculation about what the pandemic has done to the average workday for those lucky enough to have a job that can be done at home. Now we have some real data on how the lives of millions of workers have changed. Are we working more or less? Are our meetings getting longer? What are we missing about the office? How can companies adapt to what their workfor...

Anne With An E is a reimagining of Lucy Maude Montgomery’s Anne of Green Gables tales. It ran for three seasons, and then got cancelled. And the fans took it personally. This isn’t a conversation about Anne With An E, though, it's a conversation about what happens when popular culture becomes a political identity. GUEST: John Semley We love feedback at The Big Story, as well as suggestions for fut...

Since Monday, the nation’s federal government has seen a high-profile resignation, a historic appointment, a prorogation of parliament in the middle of a pandemic, the release of 5,000 pages of documents concerning the government’s latest scandal, the promise of a reset and the threat of a fall election. Just another lazy August weekend in Ottawa. So why did the Liberals prorogue parliament? What...

You probably first heard it from the mouth of a losing coach or player—but that's not where it came from. You may have noticed that US President Donald Trump used it to brush off 150,000 dead Americans, and everything that happened afterwards. It's a phrase that means almost nothing, yet is used to describe everything. So why has it become so ubiquitous? When we say "It is what it is", w...

In most places, restaurants can reopen for indoor dining—with a whole lot of restrictions. But with limited seating available, it's going to be impossible for most places to sustain their business on diners alone. And most of us don't feel great about going right back to a restaurant anyway. So...what next? As awful as COVID-19 has been for the hospitality industry, it has merely accelerated some...

Tracy Moore took over as host of Cityline 12 years ago, the first black woman to host a Canadian daytime lifestyle show. The reaction to her debut was…ugly. But 12 years later, Tracy is still here, and has been talking fashion and health and recipes and everything else you’d expect for more than a decade. But now, she’s also talking about anti-racism and white supremacy. On a lifestyle show. In a...

What the Toronto Raptors are attempting has never been done before—they're trying to shed a superstar and get even better. When the reigning champs begin the NBA Playoffs Monday against Brooklyn, they'll do so with a better winning percentage than they managed with Kawhi Leonard shutting down opponents and filling the bucket. What makes this group so special? How do they go about winning games aga...

There are lots of reasons schools should open in the fall. From parents' sanity and productivity to the fact that without the childcare schools provide, working parents are basically screwed and economic recovery is impossible. But there's another assumption that we make when discussing sending kids back in September: That going back will be the best thing for their mental health. What if that ass...

Should you drive, take the train or fly? Where should you stay when you arrive? Can you use public bathrooms—and how do you do it safely? Are airlines still enforcing social distancing inside planes? Do you need to wipe down your tray table? Can you ride in a car with another family if you all wear masks? Travel is about getting outside of our comfort zone—which means something much different in 2...

Ontario's premier won a landslide election in 2018, but by the end of last year his approval rating was underwater. It's fair to say that when COVID-19 began, Ontarians were skeptical of his leadership. Six months later, though, Ford's approval is sky high. So what happened? Did Ford rise to the challenge or just beat low expectations? Has he really changed minds or is this just a crisis bump? Wha...

Dead sea lions turn up from time to time on beaches in British Columbia. That's not unusual. Recently though they’ve been found missing their heads. And yes, that’s the strange part. But not the strangest part. What or who, took their heads? Before or after they died? Why? What happened to the heads after they were severed? And what does this whole strange saga tell us about the delicate balance o...

It’s worth looking, every so often, at the stories of 2020 that haven’t gotten much attention because of the...raging global pandemic, furious protests against police brutality and racism, the never-ending saga of Donald Trump somehow being President of the United States and the general 2020 news like murder hornets, plane crashes and catastrophic global warming. It’s been a busy year and some thi...

When they're going through elementary and high school, nobody asks these children and teens about their immigration status. That's policy in our system. When they graduate however, even if they've got straight 'A's, post-secondary education is just about impossible. So some of our brightest young people leave school, and take up under-the-table jobs in factories and bakeries, putting aside their d...

There's a ton of good news about various Covid-19 vaccine trials moving to Phase Three. What does that actually mean? Some companies might even begin production now, hoping for positive results, in order to meet global demand should the vaccine be proven to work. Politicians keep touting early 2021 as a target, but... What do we still need for these vaccines to be proven effective? Who makes that...

In casual discussion of the virus, the term "Long Haulers" is, generally, used to describe people for whom symptoms of Covid-19 can linger for weeks and months, long after the worst seems to be over. And that can be debilitating. But that’s not the only kind of ‘long-hauler’. There are also people, we’re learning, who recover, but continue to test positive weeks later. Even without any s...

Kanye's a celebrity. He lives his life extremely publicly and he's openly discussed his mental health. So many of us feel free to speculate about it, too. When we do, we're also talking about thousands of non-celebrities who live with mental health challenges—and they hear exactly what we're saying. Why do we feel so confident to discuss the mental health of celebrities as though we know them? Wha...

A landmark ruling last week found that sending refugee claimants back to the United States under the Safe Third Country Agreement violates their human rights—and a federal judge has given the government six months to fix or terminate the policy. What does this mean for the US-Canada border? For the thousands of refugees every year that arrive in the United States then try to make it to Canada? To...

There are at least 102 kids. Most of them are Indigenous. Over seventeen years their money was stolen from their bank accounts, pushing them into poverty, homelessness and worse. And nobody noticed. Nobody cared. A multimillion dollar settlement from the BC government admits that this happened, and attempts to make up for the failures with at least $25,000 per victim. But no criminal charges have...